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Does anyone use the instance finger?

I've now spent several hours in the queue on several occasions and have yet to get a queue pop. I select all the 3 and 6 man instances except for the one in Forchel which I despise. Yesterday I spent a contiguous 4.5 hrs in the queue at one point and nada.

Is GLFF still the best way to find groups.. (and finding a good guild)?

It appears that nobody actually uses the IF in the way that it is actually meant to be used

We do use it the way it is supposed to be used. It is an Instance Finder not a Group Finder. The way the feature is designed. You are given a reward bonus when you let the Finder pick the Instance. There is no incentive to letting the game pick your group members.

In order to get maximum benefit out of the Instance Finder you want to build an effective team using some other mechanism like GLFF. Once you have a full group, you invoke Instance Finder to select an Instance for you, thereby get the maximum bonus reward.

If Turbine intended for us to use the Finder to build groups:

1) We would have been given a bonus for every member the Finder picked for us.
2) Turbine would have called the tool - Group Finder not Instance Finder.

Last time I checked the limited group finder does not support anything over six person instances. You want to do a Raid instance - you have to form the group before invoking the Instance Finder.

Unless stated otherwise, all content in this post is My Personal Opinion.

Instance Finder, a new feature in Update 5, is a tool to both help find groups to run instances and provide rewards for playing random content. You can use it to join instances with your friends (much like Instance Join) or to find new friends to fill a Fellowship. When you are put into an instance by Instance Finder, you will earn more of our new Instance Currency (Marks/Medallions/Seals), and have a small power and morale buff. In the near future (likely for Update 6), we plan to allow you to further customize your "random" experience by opting out of instances you'd rather not play.

We do use it the way it is supposed to be used. It is an Instance Finder not a Group Finder. The way the feature is designed. You are given a reward bonus when you let the Finder pick the Instance.

What possible purpose would that even serve? I think we all knew where Grand Stairs and Lost Temple were before they came out with the instance finder. The issue was not that no one could find the instances, it was that some people were having trouble finding a group.

The Instance Finder is supposed to be a way that people can randomly queue and the game will put them in a PUG in short order. The purpose of the bonus was to a) encourage people who might be adverse to random PUGs to join and b) create an incentive for people to be willing to do any instance thus increasing the pool of people that can be assigend to a PUG.

Neverwinter Online does this very well from what I've seen. Rift seems to do a decent job as well from what I've seen so far. LOTRO's attempt at this has been a spectacular fail.

Its purpose is to get us to do content we don't really like because we get extra food pellets if we let the game software pick the instance. The hope is that will not get bored doing the content because we are not farming Sword Halls or School at Tham Mirdian all the time. It is a content extender not a Group Finder.

Swtor has the same functionality for some of their group content. You are going to queue for PvP Warzones. The group finder will build you a group from queued players. Pick an instance like Hutt Ball which some people can't stand.

Originally Posted by NukeTheLag

The purpose of the bonus was to a) encourage people who might be adverse to random PUGs to join and b) create an incentive for people to be willing to do any instance thus increasing the pool of people that can be assigend to a PUG.

You are incorrect this analysis. The bonus is given when the game software selects the instance. There is only down side risk when you have the game software pick your team members. The correct solution is to build a workable group outside of instance finder. Invoke instance finder to select the instance to get the maximum reward with a capable group.

That way you avoid getting poorly geared players, players queued for the a role they can't perform, players that do not how to play their class, players that are not team players... You can examine their gear, their name to see if someone knows them and can recommend them ...

The other issue is that group finder is very primitive. It allows players to select a role that they are not traited for. Do not have the gear for. Turbine would need to improve the role selector so that I do not find that my Healer is a DPS traited Rune Keeper that is not going to retrait. Turbine is going to have to give me a bonus for letting the game software team members. Otherwise why would I risk getting a graduate of the Leeroy Jenkins method of playing in my group. I've been the Leeroy Jenkins route before. That is a waste of my valuable game play time and silver for no reward.

Unless stated otherwise, all content in this post is My Personal Opinion.

Its purpose is to get us to do content we don't really like because we get extra food pellets if we let the game software pick the instance. The hope is that will not get bored doing the content because we are not farming Sword Halls or School at Tham Mirdian all the time. It is a content extender not a Group Finder.

Sorry Yula, you don't get to define what its purpose is. When it was launched, I remember it being advertised as a way to find groups, regardless of what they called it. And, indeed, it can serve that purpose. Another purpose is to encourage us to try new instances by offering small currency bonuses. If it were meant *only* to increase currency for running less used content, why would it be called an "Instance Finder", since you seem to be hung up on the naming thing? Wouldn't it be called a "Currency Booster"?

It fails in both regards, anyway.

The only thing I've ever seen it used for is to run a specific instance with an already formed group for the small bonus you still get even if you don't choose a random instance.

Instance Finder, a new feature in Update 5, is a tool to both help find groups to run instances and provide rewards for playing random content. You can use it to join instances with your friends (much like Instance Join) or to find new friends to fill a Fellowship. When you are put into an instance by Instance Finder, you will earn more of our new Instance Currency (Marks/Medallions/Seals), and have a small power and morale buff. In the near future (likely for Update 6), we plan to allow you to further customize your "random" experience by opting out of instances you'd rather not play.

I quite aware of these development diaries. The actual Instance Finder inside the game is ineffective at building groups. Hence the Yula Bunny and a lot of other people do not use Instance Finder to build groups. Instead we build our groups outside of Instance Finder. Invoke Finder to either select an Instance. Or to run a specific Instance in which case we not using any Finder capability.

I suspect that over 90% of the instances are run without using the group finder functionality.

Turbine gives me a bonus for letting a potential Leeroy Jenkins into my group. I may consider using Instance Finder when my buddies are not available. Otherwise, I will do solo activities like chase chickens. When they come on line. We will form a full group. I do an instance with my buddies. I rather do group content with my friends than with strangers.

One thing to remember, I started playing when no game had a group finder. The first thing you did was find a guild or build friendships doing landscape content. You went on dungeon crawls with your friends. I am from the paper and pencil Dungeons and Dragons era back in the 1970s before these games existed. We got together at specific times to do content as a group.

Final Thoughts - Turbine can mine the server data to see what players do. I think it is important for Turbine and other players to understand why the Yula Bunny and other players are doing it that way. Often times users or software products exhibit what is called "Emergent Behavior". Which is a nice way we are "Doing it all wrong" in an unexpected way.

In some cases Emergent Behavior is fine. In other cases, Instance Finder - It is being used heavily to build groups. When this situation occurs, you have less than successful feature. Or worst case, a failed feature.

Unless stated otherwise, all content in this post is My Personal Opinion.

Sorry Yula, you don't get to define what its purpose is. When it was launched, I remember it being advertised as a way to find groups, regardless of what they called it. And, indeed, it can serve that purpose. Another purpose is to encourage us to try new instances by offering small currency bonuses. If it were meant *only* to increase currency for running less used content, why would it be called an "Instance Finder", since you seem to be hung up on the naming thing? Wouldn't it be called a "Currency Booster"?

It fails in both regards, anyway.

The only thing I've ever seen it used for is to run a specific instance with an already formed group for the small bonus you still get even if you don't choose a random instance.

Yula isn't defining what its purpose is, he is stating all that it is fit for. Let's be honest, its totally useless as a group finder, it is incapable of putting together groups over 6 players, it is incapable of selecting balanced, compatable characters and is generally less uselful that the previous option for entering skirmishes. It defines itself!

You are incorrect this analysis. The bonus is given when the game software selects the instance. There is only down side risk when you have the game software pick your team members. The correct solution is to build a workable group outside of instance finder. Invoke instance finder to select the instance to get the maximum reward with a capable group.

That way you avoid getting poorly geared players, players queued for the a role they can't perform, players that do not how to play their class, players that are not team players... You can examine their gear, their name to see if someone knows them and can recommend them ...

The other issue is that group finder is very primitive. It allows players to select a role that they are not traited for. Do not have the gear for. Turbine would need to improve the role selector so that I do not find that my Healer is a DPS traited Rune Keeper that is not going to retrait. Turbine is going to have to give me a bonus for letting the game software team members. Otherwise why would I risk getting a graduate of the Leeroy Jenkins method of playing in my group. I've been the Leeroy Jenkins route before. That is a waste of my valuable game play time and silver for no reward.

Neither you nor I know for sure what Turbine was thinking. I see your point about getting more mileage out of existing instances, but it seems pretty clear that part of the goal was to help out the people complaining that they couldn't find groups. Either way it is total failure.

Whether the intention was to put new life into old instances or make it easier to PUG, the way to do this would be to make the rewards for running an instance related to the difficulty/length of time it takes to run that instance. Also instance locks or diminishing returns for running an instance too often could be part of this as well.

As it stands, the marginally increased reward for using IF only works if you know ahead of time that you are going to succesfully complete the instance. (BTW, completion of the instance and not selection is when the reward is given). For, e.g., one of the tougher Fornost wings, there is no guarantee that a random PUG will complete it. Or if you want that guarantee you can take an hour to form an optimum group. Either way, if the goal is maxmizing seals and chances to loot, the smart thing is to faceroll Sambrog a dozen times in the same amount of time. The IF becomes irrelevant. There is simply no reason to try to diversify what groups run. As a result, even less people get any experince running anything remotely challenging like Fornost or Sari-Surma and the vicious circle just keeps getting worse.

One thing that other MMOs do is that periodically there are incentives for running certain content. For example, from 8:00-9:00 there would be a bonus for running Annuminas instances and then from 9:00-10:00 there's a bonus for running In Their Absence stuff. Or Tuesday nights could be for Skraids, Wednesday for Erebor raids and Thuesday could be Moors night. People who desire to run particular content make it a point to log in at that time and in general it creates a buzz about certain content.

As far as idiots who sign up as a healer and trait DPS, it could allow the group to boot that person and pull in someone else and that person would get the full bonus maybe. It's definitely a flaw in the system.

If more people would use it for finding groups, then it would become more useful for finding groups. The biggest reason it doesn't work in terms of building groups for people is that there are no people using it, so there are no people in there for it to build a group out of. Simple.

The same tool exists in other games and can get a lot of mileage. See WoW's dungeon finder for an example of a well-used one.

Yula is right about a good many things, but this is not one of them. See past the name of the instance finder for what it does: it will build an instance for you of whatever size you want, even if you don't have enough people in your group at the outset to do some of them. It DOES find a group for you... or at least it WOULD if people would try to queue up with it instead of always going in with complete pre-made groups. You can go in and select group size 1, 3 and 6, if you want, even if it's just you. Or, you and a buddy can go into it together and choose size 2, 3 or 6. It will randomly either start a size 2 skirmish or queue you up for a 3-man or 6-man if other people are also in the queue for similar options.

Our community basically just rejects it for what it is and so it simply doesn't work the way it could.

Townsperson says, "I'm having an adventure. I've paddled all the way from Frogmorton!"

The past 2 (3?) Developer Chats on Twitter, I have asked about whether there are any plans to revisit/rethink the functionality of the Instance Finder. So far, these questions have gone unanswered. I sincerely hope that that some developer somewhere is giving some thought about how to make this tool more useful other than providing a bonus for pre-existing groups.

The instance finder is completely flawed design, as the main design goal seems to be to simplify the whole thing down to a "do instance content now" button. Unfortunately to implement that goal that it would need to be way smarter or allow much more fine-tuning.
- As a champ/cappy I may opt to act as a tank for 3-mans but not 6-mans, or dps for both (same for t1 vs. t2), but with the given tool I have to either under- or overstate my abilities.
- If I select multiple roles I may have to retrait and/or equip for the role the IF selected for me, but there is no option for that in the IF (other than leaving the instance and find the next bard).
- If you select t2 you do so for all selected instances.
- If you're after seals you either have to select t2 only (excluding instances without a t2 option) or risk that the IF selects the t1 version without challenge mode for seals.
And lets not start about group balancing or the missing fixed-level instances and raids.
I think to some degree the whole changes in U9/U10 to the instance system and the damage nerf are to accomodate for the shortcomings of the instance finder.
I don't know the system in Rift or WoW (never had that game installed), but as someone mentioned the Neverwinter version, that isn't really better either. Or rather, the game-flaws in Neverwinter give it a better success chance (less classes, imbalanced classes, less instances, all instances basically using the same simple mechanics, no real need to care about levels, only option to enter instance remotely, ...).

I never really understood why no one took to the instance finder in Lotro. There didn't seem to be a problem in WoW. Granted that instance finder isn't perfect either (I don't think it's possible to make one that's perfect) but at least people use it.

I never really understood why no one took to the instance finder in Lotro. There didn't seem to be a problem in WoW. Granted that instance finder isn't perfect either (I don't think it's possible to make one that's perfect) but at least people use it.

It has a number of problems. The biggest one IMHO is that nobody uses the instance finder because nobody else uses the instance finder. i.e. critical mass isn't achieved. I prefer to group with kinmates, but occasionally join PUGs via invites people put in glff. I'd be just as happy to find those pugs using the instance finder, but, well, people don't use it. I also feel like I'm "on hold" on the rare times at the beginning when I went in to the queue.

It has a number of problems. The biggest one IMHO is that nobody uses the instance finder because nobody else uses the instance finder. i.e. critical mass isn't achieved. I prefer to group with kinmates, but occasionally join PUGs via invites people put in glff. I'd be just as happy to find those pugs using the instance finder, but, well, people don't use it. I also feel like I'm "on hold" on the rare times at the beginning when I went in to the queue.

This game does give a few options for finding random groups. The thing is, most don't seem to like the random part. You never know who it will put you with. I also have heard that it would group you with people on your ignore list, so you can't filter players you don't want to group with. That is an older complaint that may have been fixed though.

I have seen people say there are IF type systems that work in other games. If someone knows of one, how does it work? What got people to not care about the random part? I would love to have a working/used instance finder.

This is LAME!

I've also spent several hours in the instance finder today waiting for the queue to pop but nothing happened. Eventually I got bored and logged off. Decided to cancel my VIP because I'm not going to pay for a game where I can't even get to experience any of the instances and I'm not one to spend years trying to build up a fellowship. What's wrong with pugging? I've been pugging in WoW for years and it's just perfectly fine, you get to enjoy all the content without having to be a hard-core player and without having to deal with guild dramas. Just log in, pug, play, experience the content, have fun. There's so much awesome content in LOTRO (apparently) yet I never get to experience any of it because every decent quest line or instance requires a fellowship which is apparently impossible to set up using the provided 'finder' tools. This BLOWS. </rant>

Usually i agree with you almost 100% Yula, you're nearly always right, but on this one you are way off mark and very wrong.

It even says in the developers diary description "is a tool to both help find groups to run instances and provide rewards for playing random content." so yes it is a group finder, people just don't use it as such because it's not a very good system.

Usually i agree with you almost 100% Yula, you're nearly always right, but on this one you are way off mark and very wrong.

It even says in the developers diary description "is a tool to both help find groups to run instances and provide rewards for playing random content." so yes it is a group finder, people just don't use it as such because it's not a very good system.

Turbine can say what it likes, that doesn't make it so. If something waddles like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. And Turbine calling it an eagle doesn't make it one!

The instance finder is a poor excuse for a an instance finder and a dead loss as a group finder. The last time I used it, it put me in a 6-man group comprised of my Guardian, 3 Hunters, a Burglar and a Lore Master. Major disaster and total wipe out. Everyone blamed everyone else for not being able to stop the wipe, lots of bad words and feeling. I will never use it as a group finder again!

I mostly only play instances with people i know. I do not need a tool to find thoes people.
Also if used, there are to may .... casuals within. Guys how never played in instances before, or minis who should heal and are in warspeach and such stuff. since i do not want to have the stress with such a random group i do not use it.

Is it the fault of the casuals? no i do not think so, its more a fault of turbine, since there is absolutely no need to build up groups till you reached the max level. If you would have to group up all the way up to max level (or would have at least the choice between: levelling through (difficult) solo content or levelling through difficult group content i would guess that the instance finder would be alot more used.

For what to group up, if nearly all could be obtained solo? - For what to group up, if you have seen the sames instances 1000 times before?

I never really understood why no one took to the instance finder in Lotro. There didn't seem to be a problem in WoW. Granted that instance finder isn't perfect either (I don't think it's possible to make one that's perfect) but at least people use it.

I like the idea of instance finder and really wish we could use it for forming groups.

I remember that when it was first implemented, people were trying to use it. I was able to find groups (3man only, even though I was selecting all options apart from skirmishes) withing 10-15 minutes no matter on what class/role I was going there. And there were many problems: you don't want to do Dragnakh t2 with hunter/hunter/mini, you don't want to do Pits t2 with 3 guardians. Many players were selecting multiple roles to maximize their chances but once they were inside they were refusing to retrait (if you leave - you lose the bonus). I was typically queuing on a captain for a tank/support/healer role because I knew I will retrait to whatever was needed and with a captain most 3mans have a chance. And still if it was me and 2 hunters we would sigh and say to each other: "thank you for trying". However, I managed to have some successful (usually t1) 3man runs on either a captain or a guardian. I never saw a 6man formed with Instance Finder, even though I was always selecting that option. At lvl75 I could not imagine a 6man being doable with a random group of random classes with - possibly - wrong traits.

Nowadays we are in a different situation. The instances were simplified, the damage was scaled down and I saw many of the easier 6mans (Sambrog, Ost Elendil) done without proper tanks, proper healers and with strongly undergeared players. A lvl75 3rd age weapon for a dps class is what I call "undergeared". I even met a dps RK with a lvl65 1st rune stone and lvl65 gear. The instances are still doable.

I agree with Grimdi:

Originally Posted by Grimdi

I think to some degree the whole changes in U9/U10 to the instance system and the damage nerf are to accomodate for the shortcomings of the instance finder.

If IF was implemented now, I believe it would have a higher success.

I really want to hope that the impending class revamps will improve the situation. We have war-steeds now and their traits can be changed at any time. I hope that we will get similar UI for our characters enabling them to retrait even inside an instance. If this happens, I will give the Instance Finder the second chance.

I remember that when it was first implemented, people were trying to use it. I was able to find groups (3man only, even though I was selecting all options apart from skirmishes) withing 10-15 minutes no matter on what class/role I was going there. And there were many problems: you don't want to do Dragnakh t2 with hunter/hunter/mini, you don't want to do Pits t2 with 3 guardians. Many players were selecting multiple roles to maximize their chances but once they were inside they were refusing to retrait (if you leave - you lose the bonus). I was typically queuing on a captain for a tank/support/healer role because I knew I will retrait to whatever was needed and with a captain most 3mans have a chance. And still if it was me and 2 hunters we would sigh and say to each other: "thank you for trying". However, I managed to have some successful (usually t1) 3man runs on either a captain or a guardian. I never saw a 6man formed with Instance Finder, even though I was always selecting that option. At lvl75 I could not imagine a 6man being doable with a random group of random classes with - possibly - wrong traits.

As someone who has successfully used the Instance Finder, maybe you can answer my questions. When you join an instance, does it automatically put you into a fellowship with the other players that join? Also, does it not come up with an Instance Travel pop-up like when you use the Specific Instance Finder, that would allow you to Travel Later so you can go and retrait quickly before entering?

It seems to me a lot of the problems people have with grouping with randomers would be solved if you could see who your team was before entering the instance, or even choosing the instance.